Case study: Using GS1 standards to improve EDI accuracy and achieve the perfect order
In 2011, Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD), Mercy Health (Mercy) and its supply chain company Resource Optimization & Innovation (ROi) launched a collaborative initiative to fully automate their order-to-cash process to achieve the “perfect order,” implementing GS1 standards from manufacturing site to patient bedside.
This end-to-end integration of global data standards—in supply chain and clinical processes—by a healthcare manufacturer and provider is a first-time accomplishment in the U.S. healthcare industry. Moving forward, the trading partners have continued to perfect and extend their perfect order success, resulting in highly accurate and efficient processes with a continual focus on improving patient care.
Adopting a phased approach
Today’s U.S. healthcare industry faces many challenges such as increasing regulations, new demands from patients and rising costs. For healthcare providers and manufacturers alike, the supply chain holds considerable opportunity to better control and reduce accelerating costs by addressing a major contributor — errors. To eliminate transaction errors, BD and ROi/Mercy took a phased approach to implement GS1 standards, enabling automated EDI transactions to reduce human intervention in their procurement and replenishment processes.
What makes an order “perfect”?
Defined by the Strategic Marketplace Initiative (SMI), the perfect order is “a purchase order processed electronically (from order to payment) without human intervention, delivered to the correct location, on time, undamaged, at the right price, with the desired quantity, on the first attempt.” This process ensures effective use of available resources by eliminating errors and maximising the use of technology.
👉 Learn about the first steps with identification and enabling seamless EDI transactions in the next blog.
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